Here in the U.S., Portland has been factoring bicycling into
integrated urban, suburban, and even rural transportation, development and
sustainability plans. In 2003, city leaders and transit authorities launched a
public campaign to encourage residents to bike, walk and make greater use of
public transportation. They also began building out biking infrastructure —
dedicated bike paths, lanes, signage, etc. — and began funding public
educational initiatives and research studies to better measure and understand
biking’s overall scale, scope, costs and benefits, as well as how it fits into
the overall transportation mix.

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The results have been so encouraging that Portland's City
Council on September 18 voted unanimously in favor of investing $20.7
million in federal funding to make improvements to biking and
pedestrian transportation. Longer term, the city's Bicycle Plan for
2030 calls for 25 percent of city travel to be on bicycles by
that year. That, it has been calculated, would entail 20 percent of Portlanders
riding their bicycles 15 minutes each day.

In order to realize this goal, city leaders have proposed making
another $100 million in biking investments through 2030. Considered among all
the issues and challenges facing the city, can investing in biking at such
scale genuinely be considered good use of scarce capital and other resources? Evidence
indicates that’s very much the case.

Bicycling investments
in Portland: The costs and benefits

Studies
show that Portland's investments in bicycling have yielded significant returns
and benefits. In a 2010 case study entitled, Costs and
Benefits of Bicycling Investments in Portland, Oregon, researcher
and author Thomas Gotschi calculated that bike ridership in Portland grew
five-fold, at a 9.6 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), from 1991
through 2008. Gains of 22 percent and 14 percent were made from 2006-2007 and
from 2007-2008, respectively. As of last year, it has been estimated that
biking accounted for 7 percent of travel in the city.